


undue influence

by chasindsackmead



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Chess, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7102288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasindsackmead/pseuds/chasindsackmead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It makes me wonder. Is my influence over you... undue?"<br/>"Perhaps. But it's the kind of undue influence I enjoy."<br/>"No one ever accused you of being politically astute."<br/>"Not today, anyway."</p>
<p>The mages of the south are... different. Being a Circle mage has shaped Leopold Trevelyan's life in ways he can hardly explain, and Dorian can barely understand. Piece by piece, Dorian puts together the puzzle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[0]

  _They find a piece of carved stone in a ruined house -- a flat tile, almost square, with an incomplete relief on one side. The Inquisitor holds it up to the light. "This looks Tevinter," he says. "Dorian, what do you think?"_

  

[1]

 

It was built from the same kind of stone as the Chantry buildings up north, along the same general architectural plan despite the centuries of schism; it _ought_ to be familiar, and yet Haven's Chantry unsettled him and left him twitchy and annoyed, like a cowlick that refused to be smoothed down.

It couldn't be helped. Lady Montilyet's office was inside, so he couldn't stay away forever.

As he pushed open the heavy double doors, the stink of cheap incense slapped his nostrils, and the sister closest to him began intoning:

" _Magic was made to serve man, never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken your gift and used it against your children. They shall be called maleficar, accursed ones..._ "

Did she think he was stupid enough to think it was a coincidence? " _Oh, no, Lord Pavus, I just happened to be chanting that verse as you entered!_ " He smiled over gritted teeth and gave her a cordial nod.

At least she wasn't spitting in his face. One had to be thankful for small mercies.

He pushed open the door to the Ambassador's office, to find the Herald there, his brows furrowed, apparently deep in conversation. " -- more than livable," he was saying.

"Really?" said Lady Montilyet, surprised. "If that is how you feel, I'm pleased to hear it, my lord."

Trevelyan gave her a smile and turned to go, starting back at the sight of Dorian. "Dorian! I didn't hear you come in. You have business with Josephine?"

Dorian nodded. "And I was going to pass on some notes to Minaeve, but I see she's not here."

"I think she's eating," said Trevelyan. "She takes her meals at odd hours. If you'll excuse me? I have to speak to Warden Blackwall."

"Of course."

He watched Trevelyan go, momentarily distracted by the man's shoulders, and was brought back to himself by a very pointed throat-clearing sound. "Lady Montilyet, I do beg your pardon," he said, spinning round and bowing slightly. "I have that list I mentioned."

Her eyes lit up. "Ah! The merchants with the supplies of enchanted goods?"

"And lyrium, and alchemical ingredients," said Dorian, taking out the list and handing it over. "I'd advise you to keep my name out of it. I burned a few bridges on my way south. Not all of them would be happy to know I was involved."

She glanced at the list, and back at him. "There are many ways to burn a bridge with a merchant, legitimate or otherwise. The Inquisition is not going to find itself liable for your outstanding debts, I hope?"

"Maker's breath, no! I have no outstanding debts. No, it's more that some of them have long-established connections with the Pavus family. What with my being the black sheep, they could easily decide that it would pay better for them to keep their distance."

"I see." She tucked the list away with some other papers and folded her hands. "I do apologise, Lord Pavus. I should not have doubted you."

Dorian sighed. "I wish you hadn't, but I understand why you did. I drag the reputation of Tevinter behind me, whether I like it or not. I haven't yet had time to prove myself."

She frowned. "The Herald trusts you. That should be enough for me."

Dorian felt his eyebrows rising. "He does? How marvellous. Perhaps he'll be the first of many."

"I certainly hope so." Her voice and her smile were warm and sincere, and as he took his leave Dorian allowed himself to imagine that the warmth and sincerity were genuine. She might be a diplomat and thus, in a way, a professional liar, but she was a believer too.

_The Herald trusts you._ And why not, after all? They had travelled through time together, witnessed unparalleled horrors, fought side by side, saved each other's lives -- that should be enough for anyone.

It shouldn't have surprised him, to be trusted like that.

Minaeve and the Herald came out of the tavern just as he was approaching it from the side. "...not sure what she thought the rooms in the Ostwick Circle were like," Trevelyan was saying. "What were they like at Kinloch Hold?"

"I never had my Harrowing, so I was in the apprentice dormitory all the time I was there," Minaeve answered. "All of us on bunks in the one room."

"There were two dormitories in Ostwick. One for boys, and one for girls. I suppose they thought it would make it harder for us to sneak around."

"You mean it didn't work?"

Trevelyan grinned. "It depended on who you wanted to sneak around with."

Dorian stopped dead where he was, suddenly feeling intensely interested in the rest of this conversation. The angle of the wall meant that he was more or less invisible to them, unless they made a special effort to look. He took care to hold still, lest the jingle of his spurs or buckles should give him away. Not that he was doing anything _wrong_ , precisely, only --

Minaeve giggled, a very uncharacteristic sound to come out of her mouth. "It's the only thing I don't miss about the Circle. We were always in each other's pockets. I like being able to get away."

"I know what you mean. I have a room of my own now. It has a door! It even has a lock, although I don't use it."

"I don't think I'd like having a lock on my door. I'm too used to having templars around keeping watch. I wouldn't feel safe."

"You don't need to -- " Trevelyan started to speak, then sighed and started again. "Everyone is keeping watch over everyone else at Haven, and some of those keeping watch are templars, or they were. I can't say there's _nothing_ to worry about, but -- "

"I wasn't criticising you. I was just saying how I felt."

Her voice had grown positively frosty. Dorian decided that now would be the perfect time to interrupt, and he rounded the corner with a jingle of spurs and feigned surprise at the sight of them. "Ah, Minaeve, just the woman I wanted to see! I have some notes on the effects of red lyrium on human bodies. A trifle speculative, but possibly helpful, no? Herald, I hope you don't mind?"

Trevelyan flashed him a grin -- this one a fake; Dorian felt gratified that he could tell the difference. "Not at all," said Trevelyan. "I'll talk to you later."

She watched him go with a frown, and Dorian had to distract her with a little introductory prattle about systems of magical classification -- it was even relevant, thank the Maker, since apparently the Tevinter Circles didn't use quite the same glyphs as the Circles down south, and she needed him to go over his diagrams a few times before getting what he meant by them. She showed no gratitude for this whatsoever, but he had seen her speaking to others enough to know that she was like that all the time, with everyone. It was refreshing when somebody was rude to him because they were a rude person, not because they thought he was an evil blood mage.

All the while at the back of his mind he could hear Trevelyan's voice, happy, almost gleeful. _I have a room of my own now_. As if that were something rare enough to celebrate. A special sort of treat.

It was a puzzle, and he filed it away in his mind to be examined later. It would make sense eventually. He was confident of that much.


	2. Chapter 2

[0]

_It's shameful, how pleased Dorian is to be called on. "Good to see I'm expected to be an art historian as well as everything else," he grumbles, using his staff as a support as he pulls himself upright and makes his way to the Inquisitor's side. "I'm not sure why you think I'd -- Oh."_

 

[2]

 

The south of Ferelden was cold in a way that Dorian found peculiarly hard to cope with. Even Haven had been less annoying --  there was snow everywhere, but inside there were fires and shutters that closed properly, so it was possible to get warm and stay that way for a while. In the Hinterlands, it never got as cold as it did in the Frostbacks, but it never got warm either, and the campfires were too small and too ill-protected to be of any use at all.

"Does the cold not bother any of you?" he said one evening as they were trudging back to camp. A particularly offensive gust of wind had chilled the sweat on his brow, and he couldn't feel his toes. "Truly?"

Cassandra grunted her disapproval and swept past him. Cole tipped back the brim of his hat and looked at Dorian with puzzled, watery eyes. "I suppose it makes sense that it doesn't bother _you_ , Cole," Dorian added, "since your body is only nominally a body at all. Still, we are so far south, I would have thought -- "

"Oh, Ferelden's pretty chilly compared to Ostwick, all right," Trevelyan said from somewhere behind him, and just like that, he had all of Dorian's attention. There was a clump of blood lotus in his hands, his fingers deftly stripping and discarding the leaves to uncover the stems and blossoms as he walked. "Though even Ostwick got snow sometimes," he went on. "Of course, we had ways of dealing with cold in the Circle."

"I hope that was a prologue to a suggestion for how to avoid freezing to death," said Dorian.

Trevelyan laughed awkwardly, his eyes on the flowers he was holding. "Ah, maybe? Well. Probably not. There were spells built in to the walls of the tower, very old, a network of runes and glyphs that -- " (he looked up and met Dorian's eyes) " -- actually, they always said the enchantment was Tevinter. Or dated from when the Imperium ruled Ostwick. Does that sound likely?"

"Enchanted glyphs to heat a building? That does sound like us. Not that it's necessary in Minrathous. Glyphs to _cool_ a building, now, those you see everywhere."

Trevelyan nodded, a glint of warmth in his eyes. "I suppose that stands to reason. The glyphs worked perfectly until the day they stopped working entirely. It took the First Enchanter a week to figure out how to make them work again, and it was the depths of winter. And naturally, none of us were prepared for it. We'd never needed to wrap up or use extra blankets; the glyphs kept us comfortable no matter what."

He fell silent, staring up at the sky. There were grey clouds massing overhead, promising a long and dismal rainstorm. Dorian watched the clouds, and then, without quite meaning to,  watched Trevelyan watching the clouds. He seemed utterly absorbed, fascinated by the movement of grey and black and white across the sky. Dorian had seen him look that way in ancient ruins, or peering at veilfire runes, or when he had finally mastered a new spell: intent, serious, yet with a kind of wild joy underneath. It was probably his favourite of Trevelyan's expressions, and his list had seventeen entries so far.

 "How did you manage?" said Dorian at last. "Since you evidently didn't freeze to death."

 "Oh!" Trevelyan came back to himself, darting a glance at Dorian before stuffing the blood lotus blossoms into a pocket of his knapsack. "Well, on the first night we all just slept in our clothes. Most of us only had one set of robes, so it didn't help much -- "

Dorian could feel his face contorting into a mask of horror too extreme for the Orlesian stage. " _One_ set of robes? How in the world did you cope?"

Trevelyan grinned. " -- and there were only so many spare blankets to go around. On the second night, we were given official permission to share beds. For the body heat, you see. We... didn't do much sleeping that night. On the other hand, we were all _very_ warm."

Dorian laughed, and then he stopped himself. "That's -- you _are_ joking, yes?"

 "Well, now, that's an interesting question," said Trevelyan. " _Am_ I joking, or did the First Enchanter of Ostwick's Circle of Magi give official sanction for a couple of dozen hormonal teenagers to _share body heat_ without being dragged out of bed by the templars?"

He fixed a solemn and unblinking stare on Dorian's face. Dorian narrowed his eyes and counted silently. By the time he got to five, Trevelyan's mouth was trembling. By seven, he was chuckling quietly. "All right, I'm joking."

"Ha! I knew it! Did your Circle even _have_ heating glyphs, Tevinter or otherwise?"

Trevelyan nodded. "Old dwarven ones, as it happens, with a Tevinter overlay from a later era. They didn't work very well. I think they were calibrated to a different climate."

Dorian shook his head, marvelling. "Clearly you have a talent for improvised deception. I am never going to believe another word you say."

There was a glint in Trevelyan's eyes and a smile playing on the edges of his mouth. "Took your mind off the cold, though, didn't it?" he said, clapping Dorian on the shoulder. "And now we've reached camp," he added, bounding ahead of him towards the reassuring Inquisition banner and the line of tents beyond it, "just in time to avoid the rain."

Seconds after he finished speaking, there was a crack of thunder, and Dorian ducked into the nearest tent without bothering to check whether it was unoccupied. It was, and Dorian dumped his pack and started laying out his bedroll, careful to avoid touching the tent's sides. The rain was drumming down on the canvas roof like an army of iron-booted guardsmen, and Dorian shivered with relief at the thought of not being out in it.

Once his bedroll was ready, he opened the flap of the tent carefully, so as to look out without letting the rain in. Trevelyan was always a little later than the rest of them to get under canvas, always took a moment to speak to the scouts or the officers or check on supplies, careful, conscientious man that he was, but he wasn't speaking to anyone now. He was standing at the edge of the camp, beside the banner, staring at the sky, his head tipped back under the rain and his white-blond hair plastered to his scalp.

"Maker's breath," Dorian murmured, and he cupped his hands round his mouth to shout "Get _in_ here, you ridiculous man!"

Trevelyan turned to look at him, his face lit up by a huge, joyous smile, water dripping from his nose and his cheekbones. Dorian's heart clenched, and he made a mental note to re-arrange his list of Trevelyan's expressions: _smile of joy upon being soaked by heavy rain_ was clearly the winner.

Trevelyan came over and crouched down beside the open tent flap. "Are you prepared to share a tent with a very wet mage?"

Dorian snorted. "If I were slightly less cold, I could turn that into a filthy joke. Do you know, you may actually be the most perverse individual I have ever met? In here we have a perfectly nice and mostly dry tent, and out there is a downpour the likes of which the peasants of Ferelden will be gossiping about for years to come -- "

"Actually, this is fairly typical weather for this time of year."

Dorian blinked. "You're joking! ...you're not joking, are you. How do they stand it?"

Trevelyan shrugged. "They don't know anything different. Are you going to let me in, or are you going to keep complaining? I don't mind either way, it's just this position is hard on my knees."

"Speaking of filthy jokes," Dorian muttered as he shuffled backwards to make room. The tent was large enough that it was possible for Trevelyan to avoid getting water on Dorian's bedroll, just about, though not so large that there was anywhere for Dorian to look when he began taking off his wet clothes. So Dorian closed his eyes and hummed to himself until Trevelyan said "All right, I'm decent, you enormous prude."

Dorian's eyes flew open. " _Prude?_ "

It had been a lie, after all. Trevelyan was lighting a lantern, and the soft yellow glow made his bare chest look positively edible. Dorian swallowed, and wondered how long he'd be able to resist. It was the worst possible moment for him to realise that he and Trevelyan always shared a tent when they were out on a mission, even though he never asked, and neither did Trevelyan. Ever since he'd joined the Inquisition, he and the Inquisitor -- before he even _was_ the Inquisitor -- had always slept side by side in the field. And why was that, if he wasn't planning on doing anything about it?

Trevelyan pulled a dry tunic over his head. "You promise me filthy jokes and you never deliver. I'm beginning to think you don't know any."

"I'm merely building anticipation," said Dorian. "Surely you understand that the expectation of an event is part of the pleasure." _Sometimes the only part_ , he added in his own mind.

The taste of ashes in the mouth the morning after a debauch: that was why. It was inevitable, like sunset at the end of day, and the only way to avoid it was to avoid the debauch itself. Keep Trevelyan at arm's length and he'd never have to give him up. Impeccable logic, that.

Trevelyan yawned. "I look forward to hearing the filthiest joke Tevinter has to offer. When you finally decide the moment is ripe."

He closed his eyes and lay back, pillowing his head on his knapsack. Ah, and there was another one: _sleepy and satisfied at the end of a long journey_.

"It will be spectacular," said Dorian. "I guarantee it."


	3. Chapter 3

[0]

_It's a fragment, no more, and yet instantly recognisable. "Yes, actually, I do know what that is."_

 

[3]

Dorian stared at the chess board, eyes narrowed. There was a pattern there, he could see it, he could almost feel it, he was two moves away from a beautiful fork that would leave Cullen scrambling, if only he could get his knight into position without leaving it exposed --

A movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. White-blond hair and a flash of red -- ah, Trevelyan was harvesting the Prophet's Laurel he had planted. He leaned back so as to get a better view. (The Tower was the problem. It was much too awkwardly positioned. If he could only move it without exposing his Mage...)

"Getting distracted?" said Cullen, and Dorian didn't need to look at him to see the smug little grin he'd be sporting.

"Not at all, Commander," he said, still watching Trevelyan tending to the herb pots. "A man of my education can do one thing while thinking of something else. It's a skill I don't expect they taught you in templar school."

"It's not called -- " Cullen sighed. "By all means, take your time. It'll make no difference. You can't possibly win."

Dorian's eyes slid over to Cullen's face. "There's a hollow boast if ever I heard one," he said. "If I couldn't _possibly_ win, you'd have announced how many moves until checkmate. You have not, ergo, I _can_ possibly win, and therefore I shall."

Cullen laughed softly, shaking his head. "Does the Inquisitor find your arrogance endearing?"

The words were like a dagger of ice slid into his heart. "I -- " Dorian swallowed. He could feel his face stiffening. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh," said Cullen. "Forgive me, I misread the situation. I thought you two were close."

" _Close_? What is that supposed to -- "

Cullen raised his hands. "I meant no offence. I -- had noticed that he seems to seek your counsel. Your company, too, in his off-hours. Truly, Dorian, I did not think a simple observation would bother you."

"Simple!" Dorian glanced away, and to his horror, his eyes caught Trevelyan's. He smiled stiffly and nodded in greeting; Trevelyan nodded back, glanced at Cullen, and gave a small wave before turning to go. Dorian exhaled as he watched his back receding towards the cloister and the door to the main hall.

When he looked back to Cullen, he found Cullen's eyes were on him, sharp with concern.

He looked down at the board. There was the move, setting up the fork without exposing his Mage. Perfect. He picked up the Tower and set it down where it needed to be. "Your turn."

"He doesn't like me much," said Cullen.

Dorian looked up. "Oh? You surprise me. I thought he liked everyone."

"He is civil. Even cordial. And unless we have Inquisition business to deal with, he makes any excuse to leave the room when I'm there." Cullen's mouth twisted. "I suppose he cannot help seeing me as a templar. Even though -- Well, cats and mice don't make friends either."

He moved his king. By any measure a cautious move, conservative, and yet --

To the Void with the man! He had ruined Dorian's perfectly beautiful fork. Now he'd have to capture one of Cullen's Towers _and_ his last remaining Mage to have a chance at success.

"You never struck me as the kind of man who needs to be liked," Dorian said, contemplating the board. Cullen had won three more times than he had lost, and it was getting irritating.

"It's not that," said Cullen. "It's -- may I speak frankly?"

"I doubt you're capable of anything less," said Dorian without thinking. His brain caught up with his mouth and he glanced up at Cullen, who was frowning, his eyes shuttered. Dorian let out a breath. "I will endeavour to be a sympathetic listener, though I can't promise not to heckle."

Cullen rolled his eyes, his face relaxing a little. "I used to be very sure of my place in the world," he said. "I served the Templar Order and the Chantry without question. But now the world is changing, and all the old certainties are gone. When he walked out of the Fade, it looked like a sign. As if the time I'd spent as a templar might not have been wasted. Because of him." He sighed. "But he still sees me _as_ a templar, and therefore not to be trusted."

"Hmm." Dorian considered his next move, both in the game and the conversation. He was in danger of heading out on thin ice if he spoke his mind too freely -- Cullen was a pleasant enough fellow, not somebody he was eager to antagonise, and yet... there were certain truths he seemed unwilling to face, and nobody else was going to point them out to him.

He moved his Mage. "Check," he said. "You may be hoping for the impossible. To be blunt, Commander, he'll stop seeing you as a templar when you stop seeing yourself as one. But is that really what you want?"

Cullen moved his king out of check. "I left the Order."

"And I left Tevinter, and yet."

"Hm."

"To be honest, I _had_ noticed. I rather assumed you reminded him of someone who'd bullied him as a child."

"Maker's breath! Is it that bad?"

"Oh, don't fret. He'll get over it. Provided you can get over your tendency to bristle and reach for your sword every time people mention magic. You know, there's a variant of this game we play in Tevinter on a circular board?"

"How does that work? And I don't _bristle_."

"I note that you don't deny reaching for your sword." Dorian moved his Tower. "I'm closing in."

"Really?" Cullen moved a pawn to the last rank and crowned it. "Check."

"What the -- oh, you dastardly villain!"

Cullen smirked. "Such are the perils of being born to the nobility. You overlook the footsoldiers."

"That move would be impossible on the circular board. You might consider doing without a sword some day. Since you're not typically called upon to do any actual fighting."

"What good would that do?"

"It would make you look less like a templar. It might even make you _feel_ less like a templar. I can still win this, I know I can."

"Get out of check and then we'll see."

Dorian grunted and made the only legal move available. "The problem isn't the sword, you know. The problem is the fact that you don't feel comfortable without it."

Cullen moved his new queen. "Check. I don't follow."

It was a bad move. Dorian suppressed the urge to gloat, and moved his Tower into position, defending his king at the same time. "I used to think that what made the templars in the south different from those in Tevinter was the ability to cancel spells. Obviously that _is_ a difference, but it's trivial by comparison to the southern templars' attitude."

"And what attitude is that?" Cullen had steepled his hands, and was staring at the board; not actually seeing it, Dorian thought.

"That every mage is an abomination-in-waiting, and that everything else about them is unimportant. I can spot a templar at fifty paces from the disgusted expressions on their faces. They know what I am, and they don't like it. They're waiting for me to break out in demons so they can strike me down."

"Striking down abominations is what they're trained for -- what _I_ was trained for." Cullen shook his head, then sighed. "It was always supposed to be a last resort. But we had to be ready. You spend years training for it, years more guarding the mages, waiting for the worst to happen. To walk away from that readiness... it won't be easy."

"It'll be impossible if you don't take the first step. It's your move, by the way."

"I'm aware of that," Cullen said tartly. He moved a pawn, foolishly, then seemed to realise his mistake a second later; his eyes widened and he made an abortive half-grabbing motion with his right hand.

"None of that, Commander," said Dorian, wagging a finger. "If you even _think_ of saying j'adoube', I'll claim a win by default. The move is the move."

Cullen sat back in his chair, sighing. "I'm not sure you'll need a default, after that blunder."

"I certainly won't." Dorian moved his Tower. "Check. And... mate in four, I think."

Cullen leaned forward and let his eyes rove over the board. He nodded, tipped over his king, and held out his hand for Dorian to shake. "Thanks," he said, "for the game, and the advice."

"Think nothing of it," said Dorian. "It would be wicked for me to keep my wisdom to myself. Magic must serve man, after all."

Cullen rolled his eyes. "I'm reasonably sure that wasn't what Andraste meant. In any case, Dorian, you -- " His mouth twisted. "Perhaps you'll let me return the favour? If you and... that is, if there is really nothing between you and the Inquisitor, there are some people you need to set straight."

Dorian's stomach dropped. "Oh, damn."

Cullen shook his head. "It's nothing. People making assumptions, that's all."

"Assumptions are not _nothing_ ," Dorian said hotly. "It could ruin his reputation. Even allowing me to join the Inquisition was a risk -- the thought of what people might say if they really believed..." He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. _That I had seduced him so as to exploit his position_ or _that I had enthralled him with blood magic_ or _that he liked me enough to let it cloud his judgment_ : the last was the only one that might be true, and it was damning enough. The first two rumours would spread by themselves if the last one seemed plausible enough.

"Oh, I doubt they'd say anything much," said Cullen. "That kind of gossip is good for a few days' entertainment, but soon something else happens and people move on. I only mention it because... well, frankly, I made that assumption myself, and it seemed to... bother you."

"Because it's not true," said Dorian, gathering up his pieces and resetting them to the start position.

"And if it were true, would you want to keep it a secret?"

He was struck dumb by the question, incapable of making sense of it. The words were ordinary words, in an order that made grammatical sense, and yet -- how could Cullen ask such a thing? And ask it so lightly, with such a nonchalant tone, as if it were a matter of indifference what the answer might be?

He had never been able to put a thought like that into words, because he had never allowed his mind to get that far.

Cullen apparently took his silence for an answer, and leaned over the chess board, picking up his pieces and resetting them, just as Dorian had done for his. "I suppose it might be easier for both of you," he said. "I can't say I have much experience in these matters. I do know that in a place like Skyhold, rumours spread like wildfires in a dry season."

"When does Ferelden ever have a dry season?"

The edge of Cullen's mouth quirked briefly. "Once every ten years." He put the last piece in place, and stood up as if to go, but stopped where he was, frowning. "You should talk to him about it. He might be able to do something."

 _About the rumours_ , Dorian wondered, _or the subject of the rumours?_ "I'll consider it. Another game tomorrow?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chess geekery: 
> 
> A fork is a move in which one player attacks two (or three) of another player's pieces with one of their own. 
> 
> In Thedas, chess rooks are called "Towers", and bishops are called "Mages". (Although the Qunari have their own terms -- see this video for the banters in which Iron Bull and Solas play a game in their heads, including visual representation of all the moves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky19-1fuL2U) 
> 
> There really is a variant of chess played on a circular board; in the real world, it's called "Byzantine Chess" as it was believed to have been popular in the Byzantine Empire... hence my associating it with Tevinter. Dorian is right to say that Cullen's pawn-promotion move would be impossible on a circular board, because on the circular board there is no back rank.
> 
> In formal chess matches, moves cannot be taken back once made, and a player who touches one of their pieces must then move that piece. If a player wishes to adjust the position of a piece without making a move, they can do so if they say "j'adoube" (French for "I adjust").


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leopold is rather upset by what he found in Chateau d'Onterre. Dorian tries to comfort him.

[0]

 

_"There are versions of this image on every Chantry wall in Qarinus. 'The Fall', it's called, although it's usually painted, not carved. I don't know anything about stone. You might have to get a dwarf to look at that. It looks old, and that's the most I can say."_

 

[4]

There was a cacophony of squawking overhead, followed by footsteps on the stairs. Leliana slowed as she passed Dorian's alcove, glancing at him without turning her head.

"The Inquisitor has returned," she said, and continued walking without breaking her stride or -- seemingly -- waiting for his reaction.

Which only meant that she was watching for a reaction in some way that he couldn't perceive, or that she had spies planted somewhere nearby to send reports back to her. Dorian nodded, turned a page of his book, and tried his best to school his breathing and his expression; he had thought he was doing very well until he noticed the soft jangling noise and realised that he had been jogging his leg rapidly up and down until his boot-buckles rang.

He closed the book with a sigh. No point pretending; he hadn't taken in any of it, and he wouldn't, until he had seen the Inquisitor again. By all that was holy, there were _giants_ in the Emerald Graves, _and_ bears, and at least one dragon, and cliffs, and freezing cold rivers, and Red Templars, and most likely there were other awful perils there as well. There could be carnivorous nugs, for all he knew. It was difficult enough to keep calm when the Inquisitor was out travelling without him; to hold his face still when he was _back_ , and presumably safe or Leliana would have said something --

\-- Leliana _would_ have said something, wouldn't she? Provided she knew. And Leliana knew everything --

\-- oh, Maker. Leliana knew _everything_. Leliana -- or her people -- had researched his background, and searched his quarters and rifled through his _underwear_ \--

\-- she'd probably talked to Cullen about it, and Cullen had probably had no idea what she was talking about, poor man --

\-- and Leliana had stopped -- well, _stopped_ was too strong, more like "paused" -- on her way down from the rookery to let him know the Inquisitor was back.

Leliana knew. Nothing had even happened yet, and still Cullen had made assumptions, and Leliana _knew_.

The sight of the green-hooded messenger, running breathless up the stairs from the rotunda below, was almost a relief, cutting short as it did the spiral of panicking thoughts. The messenger skidded to a halt a yard from Dorian's chair and bent over, resting her hands on her knees and panting. "Message... ser... Inquisitor..." she managed to say, and she held out a folded scrap of paper.

Dorian took the paper and stood up. "Take my chair," he said, "you look like you're about to fall over." He unfolded the paper as she sat gingerly on the edge of the seat-cushion. It was a note in Trevelyan's neat and scholarly handwriting.

_Dorian --_

_I need to see you. Please meet me outside Skyhold's walls. There is a grove some few minutes' walk from the main gates. You will know where I have been by the footprints in the snow. If you get lost, send up a flare and I will come and find you._

_This is a favour, not an order. I will understand if you cannot come._

_Leopold._

Dorian frowned. He would understand, would he? He would "understand", and yet he "needed" to see Dorian... There were no subtleties in this, of the kind a spymaster could use. Trevelyan was an admirably straightforward man. If he said "need", he meant "need", which meant that even if he "understood", he would suffer if Dorian stayed away.

"Is he in danger, ser?"

Dorian looked up from the note. Now that he was looking for it, he could see the rigid tension in the woman's shoulders -- stress, but also readiness. She would spring into action in a moment if she were needed, and she was one of thousands.

"No," he said, "everything's fine. Do help yourself to the candied dates. They're in the box under the chair."

There was no way to get from the library to the main gate without being seen by dozens of people, so once he was out of the messenger's sightlines, Dorian didn't bother hiding the fact that he was hurrying. On his way to the lower courtyard, Sera accosted him. "You, fancypants! Off to see the Inquisitor, yeah?"

"As soon as you decide to stop being an obstacle in my path, yes."

"Ha ha." She scowled, and fiddled with her bow with a most un-Sera-like awkwardness. "You'll... cheer him up, right? I mean, he's in a mood."

"I'll certainly try," said Dorian. "It may depend on what exactly has him in this so-called 'mood'."

She shrugged and kicked a stone. "He's been all grumpy and sad since we killed a mob of demons in this big fancy house. I don't understand it. Who gets sad over demons? _Apart_ from Solas, yes, thanks, I know. But. Seriously." She looked at the ground. "He's not talking," she said, a little more quietly. "He's all quiet and... You can cheer him up! You're good at that."

"I'll do my best," said Dorian.

"Good. Well." She stepped aside and walked past him, spinning around and walking backwards as she said "No details, all right? I don't need to know what sort of weird magic stuff you two talk about when there are no normal people around. Just make him smile again."

She turned around and jogged off before he could answer, and he ran down the stairs to the lower courtyard with even more haste than before.

_Who gets sad over demons?_ A mage who had seen a friend possessed, perhaps, or been tempted into being a demon's host himself -- or come close enough to temptation that he had come to doubt his own will. Temptation, temptation -- the whispers in the night that every mage heard, and had to learn to ignore. Even in Tevinter, there was only a brief window of time when a mage was powerful enough to be tempting to demons but not so powerful as to have dangerous rivals seeking out vulnerabilities, and even during that window it was hard to admit the need for help. Harder still to accept it once offered.  From everything he'd seen and heard, he had the impression that southern mages never talked about it at all, afraid that any admission of weakness would be taken as a sign of being one step from the abyss.

Outside the gate, to one side of the slushy mess left behind by half-a-dozen horses, there was a single set of footprints in the snow, two man-sized boots and the small dent made by the butt of a staff. Dorian followed the trail, for once in his life grateful for the cold southern weather. If he had had to track Leopold through anything other than snow, it would have taken him hours.

He found Leopold in a grove, as the note had said, sitting on a treestump with his staff across his knees, staring at his hands.

"Your messengers are very eager," he said. "Was there something in particular you needed me for? The note didn't say."

Leopold looked up, coming slowly out of a reverie. His face melted into a smile as he looked at Dorian, and Dorian felt suddenly giddy and reckless. _I did that_ , he thought, _I made him smile. He was sad and he smiled and I didn't even have to_ \--

"Dorian," Leopold said, and his voice was rough, as if he had been shouting for hours. "It's good to see you. I -- I shouldn't have -- you were probably busy, I'm not -- "

"I'm never too busy for you," said Dorian, and he marvelled at how steady his voice was when his heart was pounding as loud as if a bear was chasing him. "Sera said something about demons?"

The smile faded, and Leopold sighed and looked away. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper that seemed to have been torn from a book. "I found this in an abandoned house. This wasn't even the worst of it, there were... letters, diaries, a whole dismal life story in scraps and patches." He inhaled, his breath ragged and shivery, and Dorian sat down beside him and took the sheet of paper.

At first he couldn't understand what he was reading. It seemed like it ought to be fiction, because it made no sense for people to do this in real life. Immerse a newborn child in water until it was almost drowned, in order to "kill" its magic? True, in the south the birth of a mage child was not a cause for celebration as it was in Tevinter, but surely --

He looked at Leopold, who was blinking rapidly, his lips pursed and his jaw tight.

"There was a child," he said. "Wasn't there? In the house."

Leopold nodded. "Her parents wouldn't send her to the Circle. Couldn't take the loss of face. So they -- locked her up. Kept her a secret. Tried to make the magic go away."

Dorian crumpled the sheet of paper in his hand. "With _this_?"

Leopold sighed. "I don't know if they tried that. I think they wanted to. Anything to make it go away."

"And of course that made it worse," said Dorian, put a hand on Leopold's shoulder. Leopold leaned in to the touch. "Because without proper training, she couldn't defend herself against the demons."

Leopold laughed bitterly. "Oh, it's worse than _that_. She didn't even _try_. She was all alone! She had no friends, no siblings, her parents never let anyone see her, even the servants were afraid of her, so when some greedy vicious _thing_ came to her in a dream and talked to her like a person and told her she was a good girl, what do you think she did? What would you have done?"

There had been times in Dorian's life when he would have burned down the world for anyone who'd speak to him kindly. They hadn't lasted, but he would never forget what it was like, nor judge too harshly the ones who gave in when temptation found them. "I take it you... took care of it?"

"I killed the demons, yes. Including the one that had once been a little girl who just wanted to be allowed to leave the house." Leopold listed sideways, and Dorian slid his arm around Leopold's waist just as his head came to rest on Dorian's shoulder. "That could have been -- " He inhaled sharply and fell silent. "I couldn't _do_ anything for her," he mumbled into Dorian's cloak at last. "I was too late."

Dorian allowed himself to turn his head a little, just enough for his cheek to rub briefly against Leopold's hair. "You save so many people. It must be all the worse when you realise you can't actually save everyone."

Leopold nodded, shifting closer, his head nuzzling against Dorian's shoulder like a cat's. "I hate it when I'm too late. I hate it when there's nothing I can do. I come back here, and people are calling me 'Herald', as if that meant -- and they look at me and at the mark and they expect me to... I don't even know what! The world is a _mess_ , Dorian! I'm doing my best. I _think_ I'm doing my best. But I'm nobody, really. I'm just one man, and sometimes it's not enough. Sometimes I'm not enough." He let out a long, shuddering breath. "What if it never changes?"

"The world is already a great deal less messy than it was when you fell out of the Fade. It _has_ changed, for the better, and that's because of you."

Leopold seemed to consider that, his breathing slowing and growing more steady. "Do you -- do you think people are less afraid?"

He didn't say "of magic"; he didn't need to. It had been an education, coming south and seeing just how true all the dark rumours and wild stories had been ( _locked up all their lives, can you imagine? and the templars are utter tyrants!_ ). Hiding who and what he was had never really been an option, so he had been flagrantly and flamboyantly open about it, and people's reactions to _that_ had been a continual siege on his self-esteem. He, at least, had a hundred generations of proudly magical ancestors to fall back on whenever the scowls and cold shoulders started to get to him. Leopold had to rely on the title that fate -- or the Maker -- or chance had given him, a title he disliked intensely and yet couldn't shake loose.

Yet whether he liked it or not, his being declared the Herald of Andraste had made people re-think a lot of things, magic included. People who would once speak of magic only in whispers with worried looks cast over their shoulders were now quite comfortable sitting next to robed men and women carrying staves.

"There has been a perceptible thaw," he said. "Hard to say how general it is, of course. Still, when it comes time for your soldiers to go back to their farms and villages, they'll have tales to tell of the mages who worked alongside them. And drank alongside them. It's hard to be frightened of somebody you've seen vomiting into a bush."

Leopold laughed. "I told you not to drink the dwarven ale."

"And that was why I felt compelled to try it. It's extraordinary, isn't it? Every mouthful more disgusting than the last!"

"I wouldn't know," said Leopold, still laughing, "since I gave up after the first one."

"Quite right too. Couldn't have you leading troops with a hangover. Think of the effect on morale!"

"Cullen's the one who leads the troops, not me."

"True, but you do have to give speeches and look inspiring every so often. Hard to do that when you're hiding from the sunlight and flinching at loud noises." Leopold made a humming sound that might have been agreement. Dorian squeezed his waist slightly. "Are you all right?"

Leopold took two long breaths before answering. "I will be," he said. "Can we -- this is silly, I shouldn't ask -- "

"By all means, ask. I can deny you nothing." Was it actually possible that the lightness of his tone made it seem like he didn't mean what he said? He felt as if he were stripping himself bare with every word, and yet Leopold never noticed. That was a good thing. Probably.

"Then -- I just -- can we just -- can we stay here for a bit? I can't go back in to Skyhold and act normal right now. Put on a brave face for the mages as if I hadn't just come away from their worst nightmare. I need -- I-I need -- " He sighed. "I don't know what I need. Just... stay?"

"Of course." With his free hand, he called up a wind to pull together some dry twigs and branches that were littering the ground and cast a small fire spell to set them alight. "That's better," he said when the fire had caught. "If we had some lamb and a skewer, we could stay here for hours."

Leopold's head lifted enough for him to give Dorian a puzzled look. "Lamb and a skewer?"

"Ah," said Dorian, "of course, you don't have kebabs this far south. You're missing a trick there. It doesn't even require any sophisticated equipment, although I suspect you wouldn't be able to get the right spices. Unless you were willing to pay through the nose."

"I've never had lamb with spices before. Nothing stronger than rosemary."

"Oh, is that what they serve it with? I did wonder which of the cooks had left twigs in my dinner. Nice to know they weren't doing it on purpose. No, no, to cook lamb _properly_ you need cumin, and turmeric, and ideally cayenne pepper, and you cut it into cubes and marinade it overnight -- "

"Don't tell me you used to cook for yourself in Tevinter. Your family's rich, aren't they? They must have servants."

"Yes -- yes, well." Out of nowhere, Dorian felt himself assaulted by a clamour of emotions ( _nostalgia anger grief bitterness_ ), and he pushed it firmly back. This wasn't for him. This was for Leopold. "I used to sneak down to the kitchen as a child, watch the cooks at work." (They would praise him sometimes, call him _ignicule_ , more affectionate than his parents ever were.) "And then of course, when I came south I had to fend for myself. Out in the wilderness of Ferelden, hiding from bears and bandits and Maker only knows what. Do you know, I actually ate a fennec once?"

Leopold laughed. _I love to hear you laugh_ , Dorian thought, and bit the inside of his cheek to hide the surge of panic that followed. "Don't tell me you mistook it for a rabbit?"

"They do have similar-sized ears, you have to admit. But no, I caught it by accident with a lightning spell when I was scaring off some ruffians. There it was, half-cooked already and quite, _quite_ dead. And it had been a few days since I'd had any meat. Waste not, want not. So I roasted it with some herbs I found."

"'Some herbs'? Did you even know what they were?"

Dorian shrugged with the shoulder that was not serving as a pillow for Leopold's head. "I was reasonably sure they weren't poisonous. When you've been camping in the Hinterlands for a week and a half, you take what you can get."

"You could have just roasted the fennec by itself."

"I had to skin it before I roasted it. It didn't smell very nice. I suspected that without the herbs, I might have trouble keeping it down."

"And did you? Even with the herbs?"

"Surprisingly, no. It was only… hmm… I would say the _third_ worst meal of my life. Although if anyone you know decides to farm fennecs for their meat, don’t invest any coin in it. They're terribly gamey. All sinew, no fat."

Leopold's face was relaxed now, all the stress and tension melted away by laughter and distraction. It was difficult to see that and not kiss him, not pull him into his arms and stroke his head and whisper _I'm here, I'm here, I'll always be here_. He had to look away eventually, because it felt as if he'd been staring for hours, and surely that had to be making Leopold uncomfortable.

_I can't keep doing this,_ he thought with utter clarity. _I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'll slip in front of people, and he'll never speak to me again. Flirtation is one thing, friendship is one thing, but --_

"You've gone silent," said Leopold. "That's rare enough to be noteworthy."

"I was just thinking of Felix," said Dorian.

"Oh," said Leopold.

"He had the opposite problem, you know. Too little magic."

Leopold's head lifted from Dorian's shoulder, and he sat fully upright. Dorian withdrew his arm. "I didn't know he was a mage," said Leopold. "Though now that you mention it, being Alexius's son -- of course he was."

"Just barely," said Dorian, waving a hand above the fire to make the flames leap. "He _might_ have been able to conjure a fire like this after half an hour of concentration. He never used his magic much, by the time I knew him. It wasn't strong enough to be worth the trouble. That nearly killed him."

"Killed him? Were there accidents?"

"No, he was very well trained. But he was an embarrassment. In Tevinter, magic is power. For the scion of the Alexius family to be so weak in it... of course, his father didn't care. His grandfather was another matter. But his mother took care of it. A good thing too, or I'd never have met him. You know, the lack of eyebrows makes it hard to tell when you're frowning, but I'm almost sure you're doing it right now."

Leopold shook his head. "I'm not _that_ hard to read. I just don't understand. His grandfather -- cared about Felix not being a strong mage?"

"To the point of preferring a dead grandson to a weak one. Yes."

"You mean he -- ? And his mother -- what does 'took care of it' mean?"

"What do you think?" Dorian said mildly, and when Leopold looked away, frowning more visibly than ever, he rubbed his hands together and leaned closer to the fire. "Now it's _your_ turn to be shocked by the barbarity of _my_ homeland."

"I -- I'm sorry, I -- "

"No, you're not. And you shouldn't be. It _is_ barbaric. I used to wonder whether the soporati had an easier time of it, not having magic to squabble over. Perhaps it only serves to make the struggle for advantage all the more vicious."

Leopold said nothing for a long moment. Dorian shifted slightly where he sat.

"If he'd been born here, he'd probably be Tranquil," said Leopold eventually. "That's what usually happens to weak mages in the Circle."

Dorian glanced over his shoulder at him. He looked sad and a little nostalgic, lost in thought, the way he often looked when he was thinking about his days in the Circle. As Dorian was watching, the sadness briefly hardened into anger, and then resolve.

"What _used_ to happen," Leopold said quietly, as if to himself, tapping the ground with his staff.

He stood up, doused the fire with a quick burst of ice, and brushed some invisible dust from his armour. In that moment he looked every inch the Inquisitor, bold and determined, unafraid, ready to do battle with dragons or aristocrats or templars, whichever happened to cross his path. It wasn't a mask, either, which was the truly remarkable thing. If he looked ready to do battle, it was because he _was_ ready.

"Come on," he said, "They're serving lamb tonight. I'll make sure they pick the rosemary twigs out of your portion."

"What would I do without you?" Dorian said, following him, and wondering how soon he would learn the answer to that question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ignicule_ = "spark" or "little fire"  
>  (Vocative form of _igniculus_. Seems appropriate as an endearment for a child mage...)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After The Last Resort of Good Men. (Also takes place after my ficlet Playing With Fire, so you might want to read that if you haven't already.)

[0]

 

_Trevelyan smiles, and lowers the stone tile. "That's more than I could have said." He wraps the tile in some spare cloth and stows it in his pack._

  

[5]

 

He was good for nothing for the rest of the day after they got back from Redcliffe. His heart was heavy and his mind was a blur, zig-zagging between a torrent of

_he could have run, I wouldn't have blamed him, what a mess to get caught up in, said he knows what he's doing, what is he doing? he kissed me. knew it was coming, but this! I don't know if I can survive it._

and a cascade of

_he’ll never be proud of me now, but I don't care any more, it used to be all I wanted, when did that change? still bitter, angry, can't say I've forgiven him. am I even trying?_

Around and around in a loop the thoughts went, crowding out any possible alternative. An hour after sunset, he gave up on trying to banish the thoughts, gave up on trying to think of anything else, and sauntered down to the tavern, fully prepared to drink until he forgot his own name.

He was a glass and a half into a bottle of tolerable Nevarran wine when Varric strode in, a folder full of loose sheets under one arm. "Sparkler!" he said as he approached Dorian's table. "Mind if I join you?"

Dorian shrugged. "As long as you buy your own drinks," he said.

Varric chuckled and sat down on the stool opposite him. "Any Kirkwaller will tell you: you don't make friends by stealing drinks. Except in the Hanged Man, because anyone who steals your drink in the Hanged Man is doing you a favour." He waved at the barman and made a signal Dorian couldn't parse. "So. Heard you and the Inquisitor went to Redcliffe. Possible Venatori ambush, says the scuttlebutt. Should we be celebrating? You... don't look like you're celebrating."

Damn Varric and his damned curiosity. "It wasn't an ambush," said Dorian, and then, because the wine had been a little stronger than he'd expected, "not _that_ kind of ambush, anyway."

The barman came over and set a tankard down before Varric, who smiled and handed over a coin. "Keep the change," he said, and the barman nodded and went back to his post. "Well, now you've piqued my interest. Carry on. What kind of ambush was it?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, come on, Sparkler! When you say a thing like that, you just make it sound more interesting. You know I'm going to find out sooner or later."

"Did I say I didn't want you to find out? No, I _said_ I didn't want to _talk_ about it." Dorian swallowed the rest of his glass of wine and poured another.

Varric made a humming noise. "Well, you're using words of one syllable, so that means it's serious. Fair enough. He's not coming, you know."

"What?" said Dorian. He stared at Varric, unsettled for no reason he could pin down.

Varric gave him a sympathetic and slightly exasperated look. "You've been staring at the door since I sat down. You're obviously waiting for somebody. Not hard to guess who that is."

Dorian leaned back in his chair and drank a mouthful of wine. "Why is everyone in Skyhold so _terribly_ well-informed about my affairs?"

If Varric noticed the unfortunate choice of words, he chose not to exploit it. "I hate to deflate your ego, Sparkler, but it's the Inquisitor's affairs people are interested in. The fact that he spends so much time with you just adds an extra sprinkle of intrigue. The Herald of Andraste, saviour of the south, choosing to spend his precious leisure hours with a magister from Tevinter -- "

"I'm _not_ a magister! Maker's toenails, how many times do I have to -- what are you -- _don't write down what I'm saying, for Andraste's sake!_ " Dorian snatched the paper Varric had started writing on and read the first few sentences. "Nonsense! _And_ you've spelled my name wrong. D-O-R-I-A-N, honestly, it's not _difficult_ , anyone would think you'd learned to write yesterday. No wonder your editor hates you if your spelling is always this bad."

 "Can I have that back?"

Dorian handed the paper over, and took a swig of the wine. "Sorry," he said. "I'm being an ass. I've had a trying couple of days, but I shouldn't take it out on you."

Varric smoothed the paper out and blew on the nib of his pen. "And I probably shouldn’t have been taking notes when you were so upset. Still. 'Maker's toenails'? That's a good one. I couldn’t resist."

Dorian shrugged. "Let me not hinder you in recording my wit for posterity."

Varric grinned. "See what I mean? I’m going to be polite and not write that down, which means I'm going to have to try and re-create it later, and I just _know_ I'm going to get the rhythm wrong." He took a sip from his tankard. "You're _sure_ you don't want to talk about it?"

Dorian sighed. "My father was there," he said.

"At Redcliffe?"

"Yes."

"Your father's a Venatori?"

"No! Maker’s breath, things aren't _that_ bad."

"Oh. Let me guess: he wanted you to go back to Tevinter? Marry the girl he'd chosen for you and have a litter of pampered magical babies?"

Dorian opened his mouth to say "yes" -- but that wasn't what had happened, after all. It had been what he'd expected -- really, for his father to have _asked_ for him to come back to Tevinter and marry Livia Herathinos was more than he had dared to hope for. As for what had _actually_ happened...

"He did want me to go back," he said, holding the wineglass by the stem and turning it around between his thumb and finger. "I still don't think he understands what the Inquisition is doing. Why it's important to me." He sighed. "Mostly, he was there to apologise."

"Now that's what I call a plot twist," said Varric. "For what?"

Dorian tilted the glass and contemplated the wine it held. It was really not bad at all -- warm, fruity, not too tannic, strong enough to have a kick, but not so strong that the alcohol was the only thing he could taste. In the tavern's low light, it looked as dark as old brandy.

"How do you know the Inquisitor's not coming?" he said.

"He never comes here after dark," said Varric. "I don't think he likes being around people who are drinking."

Dorian's stomach lurched suddenly, and a number of memories clicked together like the pieces of a puzzle. The note Lady Montilyet had sent asking him to _please_ stop raiding the wine cellar, with an annotation in Leopold's handwriting that said _I would appreciate it if you did as Josephine asks_ ; the glass of water Leopold had held onto throughout that interminable soirée with the Marquis of Alyons; the tight smile on Leopold's face earlier when Dorian had mentioned needing to drink to cope with the day's events.

Dorian looked at Varric. He had an air of expectation about him; he didn’t seem to realise the weight of what he’d said. “So,” said Varric, waving his hand in a prompt to keep talking. “what did your father want to apologise for?”

Dorian opened his mouth to tell him, and closed it without speaking. Leopold had given up on the dwarven ale after the first mouthful, and that had seemed very sensible. It was only now that Dorian realised: Leopold gave up on _every_ drink after the first mouthful.

He looked at the sheaf of papers piled up before Varric, the stubby little quill in his hand. “You’ll put it into a story,” he said.

“I wouldn’t! Word of honour, Sparkler -- ”

“You put _everything_ into those stories you write. Often twisted beyond recognition, at that.”

“I could say something about how if it’s been twisted beyond recognition, does it even matter, but – Look, Dorian – “

“Using my real name? You _are_ getting serious.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Varric shook his head. “For all the ink I’ve spilled over the years, there are a lot more stories I’ve never told, and never will. Because I made a _promise_.” For a moment, his eyes grew distant and sad, then he came back to himself and half-smiled at Dorian. “Stories are ten a copper,” he said. “I’d rather lose a story than a friend.”

Dorian blinked, started to form a witty retort about the price of friendship, and abandoned it before he could finish the thought. “You’re a good man, Varric Tethras,” he said instead.

“Don’t let it get around. A good reputation is very bad for business.”

Dorian chuckled, and took one last sip of his wine. “Your secret’s safe with me,” he said. The wine was really very good, and he was still almost entirely sober. This was not how he had planned to end his evening at all. “I can’t tell you, Varric. It’s too soon. Maybe another time.”

Varric nodded. “Well, if you ever need a listening ear – “

“I’ll bear that in mind.” He stood, pushing the bottle of wine towards Varric. “I have to go. Finish that off, if you like. It’s not bad, for a southern vintage.”

The air outside the tavern was crisp and cold. Dorian glanced around, assailed by a fit of uncertainty. Was it his business? Would he even be welcome, if he were to – and what, exactly, was he planning on doing?

Well, whatever he was going to do, the first step was to find Leopold.

He mounted the stairs to the main hall, keeping an eye out for the telltale green glow of the Anchor. Once inside the doors, he slowed his steps. Leopold was sitting by one of the fires, a letter in his hand and a dark expression on his face.

Dorian sat down on the opposite chair. “More begging letters?”

Leopold looked up, and his expression lightened a little, and he shook his head. “It’s from my brother,” he said.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” said Dorian. “You’ve never mentioned him.”

“I have three,” said Leopold. “And I’ve never mentioned any of them. They’re…” He stared into the fire, the hand that wasn’t holding the letter clenching in a tight fist.

The silence was uncomfortable, and Dorian felt conscious that this was the kind of moment when normally he would say something, anything, to fill the emptiness and keep the darkest thoughts at bay. In the future that would never come to pass, Leliana had rebuked him for that. A little unfairly, he had thought at the time, and yet she had a point. There was a time for talk, and a time to be quiet and listen.

“…we’re… not close,” Leopold said finally, brandishing the letter. “We’ve never been close. It makes it easier to deal with rubbish like this.”

“Rubbish?”

“Oh, he thinks the Inquisition’s on a hiding to nothing, and he’s just trying to get his denunciation in first. I bet he sent a copy to Grand Cleric Victoire to make sure she knew he’d been on her side from the start.” He held the letter out. “You can read it if you like. It’s dull stuff. Blah blah heretics, blah blah blasphemy, blah blah enemies of the Chantry, blah blah blah.”

Dorian took the letter and skimmed it quickly. Its contents were much as Leopold had described them, but for one line toward the end that caught his eye:

_Even one who has been cursed with magic as you have ought to know better than to fall for the wicked blandishments of the Black Divine. The influence of Tevinter on your actions has not gone unnoticed, and it will surely lead you to ruin._

Dorian felt his blood run cold. This was what he had been afraid of – worse! If the Inquisitor’s own brother could speak this way of him, what must the common run of people think?

Leopold stood and took the letter from him, turning to face the fire. “It’s disgusting. I might be worried if I thought he believed a word of it. I might even respect him for taking a stand – I can admire someone’s principles even if I think they’re wrong. But Hendrik wouldn’t know a principle if it slapped him in the face.”

The firelight made the angles of his face sharper and more distinct. Dorian had never seen him look so angry. “You think it’s a game?”

“It is _absolutely_ a game!” He turned around and waved the letter in the air. “He’s hoping that I’ll rush to support him in his latest endeavour, just to prove how pious and orthodox I am, because someone who’s been ‘cursed with magic’ needs to work twice as hard to get anyone’s approval. And if I don’t do that, he can run to the side of those who oppose us and say ‘look, I denounced him even though he’s my brother, lend me your aid!’” He sat down heavily. “My only comfort is that he’s underestimated our strength and our support. He won’t get far by siding against us.”

“You don’t plan to support him, then?”

Leopold shook his head sharply. “He doesn’t say what his plan even is, but Varric’s contacts are reporting troop movements in the Vimmark passes. Starkhaven is threatening Kirkwall. If the Prince could get support from Ostwick… well, the Teyrn won’t budge, but the Banns are independent. They have soldiers of their own.” He frowned, and smoothed out the letter, scanning it with care. “He doesn’t say outright that he’s writing under the Bann’s authority, which means he isn’t. Either he’s taken the initiative without permission, or the Bann’s hedging his bets and trying to keep a back door open in case this tactic fails. I expect we can use that.”

Dorian felt a little lost, and more than a little alarmed. Was there to be war in the Free Marches as well as everywhere else? Couldn’t the southerners keep from killing each other for five minutes even when there was a hole in the sky? The word “barbarians” crossed his mind for the first time in months, and he slapped himself mentally to keep from saying it. “And this Bann you speak of,” he said, grasping at the one point in the conversation he felt qualified to discuss, “that would be your father?”

Leopold looked up at him, mouth open and eyes wide. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, and frowned. “I mean, of course you’re right, he _is_ my father, I – ” He looked away, staring into the fire. “I don’t really think of him that way, when I think of him at all. I... it’s been so long…” He trailed off, his fingers turning the letter over and over without looking at it.

Dorian leaned his chin on his hand, waiting.

“You must think me a very great hypocrite,” Leopold said quietly. “Here I go urging reconciliation on you, and I haven’t spoken to my own family in… is it four years, or five?” He looked at Dorian, a little abashed. “What your father did… what he _tried_ to do… I can’t even imagine what that must feel like.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “And that sounds like the kind of thing people say as a matter of course, but it’s really true. I _can’t_ imagine it. I’ve tried. My parents…” He closed his eyes for longer than a blink. “I always knew they’d do whatever the Chantry said was right, no matter what it meant for me. If the Knight-Commander had decided to make me Tranquil, they wouldn’t have raised a murmur of protest.”

Despite himself, Dorian was shocked. “You can’t mean that.”

“I wish I didn’t. I…” He slumped forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. “I try not to blame them. I was the first mage in the family in six generations, and the Trevelyans stick to the Chantry like sinew to bone. What else could they do? Hide me in the cellar and hope nobody looked? No. No, it’s hardly fair to blame them.” His voice sank to a low murmur, and Dorian leaned forward to hear him better. “You and your father had something precious, and he ruined it. I don’t know if I ever had anything like that. If I did, it was taken from me before I was old enough to understand.”

Dorian reached out, not really meaning to, and touched the side of Leopold’s cheek. “They were a pack of blighted fools who didn’t know what they had,” he said.

Leopold took Dorian’s hand between both of his own and kissed it. “And your father is a blighted fool not to understand that you – that there is _nothing_ about you that needs to be changed.”

He sounded like he really, honestly believed it, and Dorian’s heart throbbed painfully. _I drink too much_ , he thought. _I run off at the mouth and insult people without meaning to. I say I believe in the Maker, but I spend more time grooming my moustache than praying. I get angry when I’m scared and lash out at whoever’s nearest. I run away from my problems. I want things I can never have._

_You’re going to find out, and then you’re going to get tired of me._

He cleared his throat. “So, your brother – will you send troops, do you think? To fortify Kirkwall?”

Leopold let go of his hand and leaned back, his eyes narrowing and his gaze growing distant. “That… would be a little too overt. The Prince hasn’t attacked yet, or even declared his intentions. Sending Inquisition troops might provoke him, and it would tip our hand – not to mention, I’ve been trying not to take sides. We can be more effective as a force for peace and stability if we’re not seen to favour one nation over another. And if the full force of Starkhaven’s army was arrayed against us… honestly, we’d be lucky to limp home.” He stared balefully at the letter. “I wish I knew whether this was all Hendrik, or Hendrik with the Bann leaning over his shoulder. If it’s all Hendrik, then we can ignore it. He doesn’t command the Trevelyan soldiers. If the Bann supports him…” He trailed off, a contemplative look in his eyes. “Josephine’s contacts might be able to answer that question,” he said, folding up the letter and putting it in a pocket.

“And if the Bann does support him?”

Leopold’s face turned grim. “Then we’ll have to win a battle. Ideally, nowhere near Starkhaven or Kirkwall, but with reliable reports that will reach the ears of both the Bann and the Prince.”

“So that they think twice before crossing the mighty Inquisition?”

Leopold winced. “Well. Yes. When you put it like that, you sound like Vivienne.”

Dorian laughed. “I’ll tell her you said that. I don’t know whether she’ll be furious or delighted.”

Leopold laughed, and for the first time since Dorian had entered the hall, he didn’t look tense or miserable. “I’ve learned a lot from her. I’d rather not turn into her, though.” He glanced at the letter. “Maybe I should write to him myself.”

“Is that wise? It sounds as if he’s laid out the board so that you have very few moves to make. Responding directly will most likely play into his hands.”

“Oh, probably. But it’ll buy us some time. And then… well, things change. Starkhaven may make a move that wipes out Hendrik’s ambitions, or the Bann may find out about his plans and drag him back to the manor by the ear. In the meantime, we’ll have looked into whatever’s going on with the Grey Wardens, and hopefully cleared it up, and then…” He shrugged. “I know, it all sounds absurdly vague, but honestly, there’s no point trying to act as if you know what’s going to happen. Not when you’re trying to change things. Not when things are changing all around you whether you want them to or not.”

_I wish I could believe I_ didn’t _know what’s going to happen_ , thought Dorian. _The world’s probably going to end soon, and all the glories of Tevinter and Orlais and long-dead Arlathan will be burned to ash._ “You’re quite an optimist, aren’t you?” he said.

Leopold frowned. “Am I? I don’t know. Wouldn’t I have to believe that things will get better to be an optimist?”

Dorian raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean to say you don’t? You act as if you do.”

“Of course I do. If I didn’t, things would get worse very quickly.” His voice dropped. “People take their cues from me,” he said. “If I look hopeful, they think there must _be_ hope, and they keep going. And then things get better. It’s… sort of like magic, in a way. Like how the Fade responds to the feelings and expectations of mortals. Makes them real.” He held the letter up. “If I was really an optimist, I’d burn this letter.”

“Burn it? Why?”

“Because if I was an optimist, I’d believe the Prince of Starkhaven would laugh in Hendrik’s face if he offered an alliance. Or that all those troop movements would turn out to be a feint, and nothing would come of them. Then… ” He stared at the letter, his face falling. “…then I could turn my back on the Trevelyans for good. Pretend I had nothing to do with them.” He smiled grimly. “They’d certainly prefer to have nothing to do with me.”

Dorian scratched the back of his neck and considered his response. “Perhaps you should write to your father instead,” he said tentatively. “Since he is the one with real authority. And as you say, your brother may be acting without his approval. Even if he’s not…” He took the letter from Leopold’s hand and set it aside so that he could take Leopold’s hand in both his own; the touch seemed to soothe Leopold a little. “Your father may not be as obstinate as you fear. He may have… regrets.”

Leopold entwined his fingers with Dorian’s. “Are you asking me to be _more_ optimistic? You, of all people?”

Dorian shrugged. “It’s worked so far.”

Leopold laughed. “I suppose after a person walks bodily out of the Fade, they don’t have the option of saying ‘don’t be silly, that’s impossible’.”

“People can surprise you, even when you think you know them well.” Dorian leaned in closer. “You taught me that.”

Leopold’s eyes darted down to his lips, and for a terrifying heartbeat, Dorian thought he was going to kiss him, right there in the hall, in full view of a dozen people – and he wanted it, wanted it desperately, wanted their lips to touch again and wanted everyone to know: _he chose **me** , he wants **me** , he is not ashamed to show it and neither am I – _

But he was ashamed. Not of who he was or what he wanted, but of how much he wanted it. And before Leopold could lean forward – if that was even what he was planning to do – he let go of Leopold’s hand and stood, even with every mote in his body screaming at him to stay.

“You should speak to Josephine,” he said. “And perhaps… consider making your father an ally. If that’s possible.”

Leopold opened his mouth to say something, frowned, shook his head and laughed quietly to himself. “ _If_ it’s possible. Well, the world is full of wonders.”

_And the most wonderful of all is sitting in front of me_ , thought Dorian, and he turned to go.

He made his way to his quarters – his extremely cold and barely adequately furnished quarters – and he undressed for bed, and slipped under the blankets with a grateful shudder.

He would drive himself insane if he waited too much longer. Burst the bubble, catch the snowflake on his tongue – it would melt away as soon as he tasted it, but he _would_ taste it, if only for a moment. Not yet. Not tonight, anyway. But – soon.


End file.
